


A Word For It

by kindkit



Category: Dalziel and Pascoe - Hill
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Queer Character, Community: help_haiti, Double Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Polari, Queer Themes, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/pseuds/kindkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remembering old words and learning new ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Word For It

**Author's Note:**

> A double drabble written for Verasteine in the [Help Haiti](community.livejournal.com/help_haiti) fundraiser. Verasteine's prompt was "love."
> 
> This drabble is set ca. _The Death of Dalziel_ (U.S. title _Death Comes For the Fat Man_), not long after Wield and Digweed got a civil union.

Edwin can remember when polite people said _confirmed bachelor_ with an arch, knowing look. Hell, he remembers _omi-palone_\--all those Polari words, secret code for men with secrets. And he remembers the others, will he nill he: _queer_ and _fairy_, _shirt-lifter_ and _arse-bandit_. There were so many, and on bad days he wondered why hate was so glib and decency so tongue-tied.

He remembers saying _gay_ for the first time without meaning _cheerful_. The wicked thrill of pilfering a word, snatching it like an apple off a market stall and then not running, not hiding. Showing it off to everyone, unsecret, uncoded. The sweetness of it in his mouth.

And now, decades after _confirmed bachelor_, Edwin is learning to say _husband_. Both pedantically and politically, he can see it's not quite accurate. But the looks on straight people's faces when he says "my husband"! The way Edgar stands a little taller with learned pride and faint masculine embarrassment, as though Edwin has kissed him in public.

Edwin likes to be a little bit shocking. He shocks himself above all, every time he looks at Edgar and feels like the end of a storybook. And thinks, sentimentally, tritely, ridiculously, happily, _my husband_.


End file.
